We ran a cinema ad campaign before the film ‘Dumb Money’ to encourage new investors to do their own research and not fall for investment hype.
Back in January 2021, retail investors on Reddit drove up the price of a video-game retailer, GameStop, before it fell back down again.
Consumers opened more accounts with investment providers in January 2021 than any other month between January 2020 and November 2023. Many GameStop investors inevitably suffered painful losses.
These kind of so-called 'meme' stocks are often very attractive to inexperienced investors, who may overlook the risk of investment hype.
We’ve been trying to raise awareness among these new investors via our InvestSmart campaign[1]. Our audience research identified our audience were disproportionately likely to be cinema-goers. So, when a film of the GameStop saga 'Dumb Money' was slated for release, our Campaigns team saw a great opportunity to reach them.
Don’t Get Played
Run during the 'Gold Spot' – the 65 seconds before a film begins – our ad started with sensory deprivation: lights down, a blank screen and an engaging voiceover. Offering a 'once in a lifetime opportunity' the ad eventually reveals the anonymous tipster is typing in an online forum – before the 'Don’t Get Played' message appeared.
The ad was supported by screen posters in cinema foyers, online ads where people research investments and in locations research told us would reach inexperienced investors like these.
A person works on a computer.
Clued up versus hyped up
Over 150,000 people saw our cinema ad, with the foyer screens seen over 6.1 million times and the online ads seen over 6.3 million times. 49% of people who saw the ad said they had or will act based on the message.
The campaign also drove a 144% increase in traffic to our InvestSmart webpages during the 6 weeks of the campaign.
This was the first time we’d created a cinema campaign tied into a specific film. It gave us a unique opportunity to get the undivided attention of an audience often bombarded with hard-sell investment ‘opportunities’. Hopefully many more of them now do their own research before falling for the hype.